“I’m aware. Mr. Swyteck, proceed.”
Jack spoke while seated, as was customary in chambers. “Judge, I want to begin by saying that although this is an unusual way for me to oppose the government’s motion to set aside the not-guilty verdict, the chain of evidence that I am about to proffer does, in fact, confirm that Sydney Bennett had nothing to do with the bribe paid to juror number five in her criminal trial.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” the judge said.
“First, we do not dispute the testimony of Mr. Hewitt that the man who offered him the bribe is the same man who met Sydney Bennett at Opa-locka Airport on the night of her release.”
“Excuse me,” said the prosecutor, “you mean the man who embraced Sydney Bennett at the airport.”
“Ms. Crawford, you will have your say,” said the judge. “Continue, Mr. Swyteck.”
“We would also ask the court to accept Mr. Hewitt’s testimony on cross-examination that the man who offered him the bribe is the same man who made the anonymous call to the FBI that led to Mr. Hewitt’s arrest.”
“We don’t dispute that,” said the prosecutor.
“Good,” said Jack. “The evidence I would proffer is that this same man has done the following things. First, he attacked me about a block away from my office and demanded to know where Sydney Bennett was. We have a hospital record and a police report to substantiate that attack. Second, that same man murdered Dr. Rene Fenning.”
“What?” said the prosecutor.
“Excuse me, Ms. Crawford. I’ll ask the questions. But Mr. Swyteck, I think her question is a good one: What?”
“This is the sensitive part of the criminal investigation that I mentioned in the courtroom this morning. The killer’s ‘signature,’ so to speak, has not been released to the public. That is to avoid the possibility of copycats or other compromising factors.”
“What is the signature?”
Jack glanced at Andie, then addressed the judge. “My attacker told me that if I did not lead him to Sydney Bennett, he would hurt someone I love. Rene Fenning is someone I used to date. Years ago. She was on her way to meet me for coffee when she was murdered. Her body was found with the words ‘someone you love’ written on her abdomen.”
All eyes-the judge’s, the prosecutor’s, the assistant U.S. attorney’s-were suddenly aimed at Andie.
Andie shifted uncomfortably. “This, uh, isn’t what it sounds like.”
“No, not at all,” said Jack.
“Well, isn’t that special,” the judge said. “If we could all step out of Peyton Place for a moment, let me ask you for this clarification, Mr. Swyteck. I see the link between the man who bribed Mr. Hewitt and the one who called the FBI. I see the link between the man who attacked you and the one who murdered Dr. Fenning. But I don’t see the link between the two. What is it?”
Jack said, “The link is a conversation I had with Sydney Bennett on the telephone early Saturday morning. She called me. She was terrified. She told me that the man she met at the airport was named Merselus, that he tried to strangle her, and that she was now on her own, on the run, afraid for her life, and afraid to come into court.”
The prosecutor raised both hands in the air like an umpire. “Hold on a second. Judge, I know this is just a proffer, but the court can’t seriously allow this evidence into the record. For one thing, how does the defense intend to introduce this evidence? Is Mr. Swyteck going to be a witness?”
“That’s where Agent Henning comes in,” said Jack. “We live together. She overheard the conversation.”
The judge looked straight at Andie, down the length of the long rectangular table. “Agent Henning, is it true that you heard Ms. Bennett say all those things to Mr. Swyteck?”
“Actually, I heard only one side of the conversation. I heard Jack talking to her. Then he told me what she said after they hung up.”
The prosecutor groaned. “So we’ve got double hearsay,” she said. “The defense proposes to have Agent Henning tell the court what Mr. Swyteck told her that Sydney Bennett said to him. I think maybe I’ll object,” she said, adding a dose of sarcasm.
“Ms. Crawford has a point,” said the judge. “And you’ve got an attorney-client privilege problem on top of it. A lawyer can’t just come into court and reveal the things his client said to him unless his client has agreed to waive the privilege.”
“With all due respect, that seems a bit hypertechnical,” said Jack. “I’m confident that Sydney Bennett would waive the privilege under the circumstances and allow me to tell you what she said.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” the judge said. “The privilege belongs to the client. Only the client can waive it.”
If the judge himself was mounting that kind of opposition, Jack could feel all momentum slipping away. The prosecutor seized on it.
“Plus,” said Crawford, “we’re left with the fact that this highly unreliable evidence proves nothing. The issue here is whether Sydney Bennett was involved in bribing a juror. This hearing isn’t about who killed Dr. Fenning.”
Jack responded, “Judge, it all comes down to one thing: This Merselus, whoever he may be, is obsessed with Sydney Bennett. It fits with our theory that he bribed the juror on his own in order to get Sydney acquitted. When things didn’t go well between him and Sydney at the airport and Sydney ran away from him, he attacked me to find her. When that didn’t work, he killed Dr. Fenning to show me that he fully intends to act on his threats. When that didn’t work, he called the FBI to make sure they arrested Hewitt red-handed when he collected his bribe.”
“I don’t get that last part,” said the judge.
“He knew that Hewitt’s arrest would force Sydney to come out of hiding and return to this courtroom. The bottom line, Your Honor, is that if you force Sydney Bennett to come out of hiding to defend this motion, you are playing into this killer’s hands.”
“Oh, come on,” said the prosecutor. “That’s a sky-is-falling argument if I ever heard one. If anything, Merselus is an old boyfriend-some rich sugar daddy, I daresay-who bribed a juror to get her acquitted, and then once she got out of jail, she dumped him. She used him, just like she uses everybody else in her life. He got mad and made an anonymous call to the FBI to get Brian Hewitt caught collecting his bribe. That would put Sydney back in jail, where she belongs.”
The judge considered it. “Ms. Crawford actually does have a way of making things fit.”
The judge’s leaning was no surprise to Jack. It had been clear throughout the trial that he was of the mind that Sydney Bennett had murdered her daughter. The prosecutor continued to hammer away.
“Judge, we are talking about a manipulative, conniving woman who murdered her two-year-old daughter and was caught embracing the man who bought off a juror.”
“Okay, I have your argument,” said the judge. “Let me tell you where I come out. Mr. Swyteck, as the record stands now, I believe the prosecution has demonstrated that Sydney Bennett is sufficiently connected to the jury tampering in this case to justify overturning the verdict of not guilty.”
“Judge, but-”
“Don’t interrupt,” the judge said. “Since we do have the FBI here, I’m feeling charitable today. I’ll give you seventy-two hours to bring in Sydney Bennett. I’m not forcing her to testify, but I am telling you that, even if I allowed you to go forward with the evidence you’ve proffered, it isn’t enough to save your client’s not-guilty verdict. If she isn’t here in this courtroom within seventy-two hours, I will enter an order granting the prosecution’s motion to set aside the verdict on the grounds of jury tampering. And I will issue a warrant for the arrest of Sydney Bennett. That’s my ruling. Are we clear?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Very well,” said the judge. “Mr. Swyteck, notify my assistant if and when you are ready to proceed.”
Chapter Forty-Four
We should send her to New Jersey,” said Theo.
Jack was back at his house
on Key Biscayne with Theo and his grandmother. Immediately after finding the threat from Merselus on the back of the JUSTICE FOR SALE sign, Jack had put Theo on an airplane to bring Abuela back to Miami.
“New Jersey?” said Jack. He was standing in the kitchen, and Theo was seated on one of the barstools at the granite counter. Abuela was in the bathroom. “Why New Jersey?”
“It’s where they film that show that’s all over the Internet-Shit Abuelas Say. She’d be awesome.”
“Theo, I can’t begin to count the number of reasons why that would be a bad idea.”
“Half serious, remember?”
“Got it.”
The toilet flushed in the bathroom down the hall. It was Abuela’s fourth visit since the plane had landed. That happened when she was nervous.
“Where your mop?” she asked as she entered Jack’s office.
“My map of what?”
“No mapa. Mop. El bano. Ay! Dios mio.”
“Abuela, we have a cleaning service.”
“What they clean? Your wallet?”
“New Jersey,” said Theo, his voice rising.
Jack ignored him. “Sit, please.”
Theo helped her up onto the barstool beside him. Jack came closer to the counter, leaning toward her. “I know all this back and forth from Tampa to Miami must seem really crazy to you, but I don’t want you to worry. You’ll be safe here.”
“I stay here with you?”
“Yeah. I talked it over with Andie, and that’s the best thing.”
She smiled. “Bueno.”
There was a knock at the door.
“I’ll get it,” said Theo, but when he got up, his foot caught on the stool. It sounded like a multicar pileup on I-95 as he and the stool hit the tile floor, but Theo was okay. He crossed the living room and opened the door. It was the neighbor’s son, RJ.
“Hi, Max!” RJ shouted.
Max lifted his head. He’d slept through the multicar pileup in the kitchen, but he was suddenly wide awake and barking as if he had smelled RJ approaching a block away from the house.
“That’s some watchdog you’ve got there,” said Theo.
Max was all over RJ, and they went down for a wrestling match on the floor. RJ quickly had the upper hand. He was big for thirteen, a force on the middle school basketball court in his size-twelve shoes, and Jack regarded him as poster child for twenty-first-century Miami: Cuban on his mother’s side, Lebanese on his father’s, and his favorite food was sushi, which he’d learned to roll himself from his uncle, whose fiancee was Japanese. When Max was pinned, RJ looked at Jack and said, “We’re leaving for Charleston tomorrow. I just wanted to see what time you wanted me to pick up my travel buddy.”
Jack hesitated. The original thought had been to send Abuela to Tampa to stay with her brother and to send Max away for the rest of the summer with the Kayals, who rented a beach house in South Carolina every year. Jack knew RJ was going to be disappointed.
“Actually, there’s been a change of plan,” said Jack.
“Max can’t go?” said RJ.
The sadness in the boy’s voice was bad enough. The pathetic expression on Max’s face made it even worse. It was as if Mighty Casey had just struck out and they were in the heart of Mudville. Jack glanced at Abuela, who shot him a reproving look that seemed to say, Have you no heart? Send the dog!
“You know what?” said Jack. “Let’s just stick to the plan. I’ll have him and all his stuff ready for you tonight.”
The joy was back as RJ gave Max a bear hug, along with a quick rundown of how much fun they were going to have at the Kayal family reunion. Abuela seemed satisfied. Jack was going to miss his early-morning ritual with the cold black nose in his face, but it was only for a short time-until the threat against “someone you love” was lifted.
The phone rang, and Theo answered it. “It’s Hannah,” he said as he handed Jack the phone.
“What’s up?” Jack said into the phone.
“I just left the women’s detention center. They finally coughed up the visitation records that Theo asked for on Saturday. I’m going through them now.”
“Anything of interest?”
“There are a couple names on here I don’t recognize, so I’ll need to follow up on them. But what made me call are the names I do recognize.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there are the familiar names you would expect. Me. You. Geoffrey and Ellen Bennett. My dad. Those are all multiple visits. And then way down on the list, there’s a name that jumped out at me. Just one visit.”
“Who is it?”
“Celeste Laramore.”
Jack’s mouth opened, but no words came.
“Jack, you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“I thought you should know right away, especially since you have that hearing before Judge Burrows tomorrow about the Laramore case. I thought it could be important.”
Now, there’s an understatement.
“Thanks, Hannah,” said Jack. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Score one for us.
Jack wasn’t keeping a blow-by-blow score in his head, but Tuesday morning’s hearing in the civil case against BNN was definitely going his way. It began with the loss of credibility BNN suffered when Ted Gaines requested that television cameras be allowed at the hearing.
“Let me get this straight, Mr. Gaines,” said Judge Burrows. “Before the plaintiffs even filed their case, you rushed into my courtroom and persuaded me to enter a gag order that prohibited them from discussing the case publicly, correct?”
“That’s correct,” said Gaines. “These scandalous allegations against the news-gathering practices of my client would cause irreparable harm to BNN’s reputation and standing.”
“I understand that argument,” said the judge. “And I also understand that just a matter of hours after those allegations appeared on Celeste Laramore’s Facebook page, you filed a motion to dismiss the case with prejudice as a sanction for violating that order. Also correct?”
“Yes, sir,” said Gaines. “For twice violating that order.”
“But you want today’s hearing to be open to the public and broadcast on television. Do I have that right?”
“Yes, Judge,” said Gaines. “The reality is that once these allegations appeared on the Internet, there was no way to undo the damage. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, as the saying goes.”
Gaines continued with a forceful First Amendment speech about the public’s right to know, but the judge was no fool, and BNN’s flip-flop was no less galling. For the first time, Jack felt momentum on his side. It made Jack lead with an argument that he hadn’t planned on making.
“I would ask the court to reconsider its earlier determination that my clients were responsible for the Facebook postings,” said Jack.
“On what grounds?” the judge asked.
“Yesterday, in criminal court before Judge Matthews, I proffered evidence regarding an unidentified man who is obsessed with my client, Sydney Bennett. That man has threatened me and committed other criminal acts in his effort to force me to reveal Ms. Bennett’s whereabouts to him. The proffer was made in chambers due to the sensitivity of the evidence as it relates to an active homicide investigation. I request the same opportunity in this case-to proffer evidence that this same man has tried to sabotage this case against BNN. We believe these Facebook postings are yet another way to bring harm to me, my clients, and my career in his ongoing effort to coerce me into revealing Sydney Bennett’s whereabouts.”
“Two objections,” said Gaines. “First, we have the proverbial what-has-opposing-counsel-been-smoking objection.”
The judge banged his gavel. “That’s out of order, Mr. Gaines. Your second objection had better be a good one.”
“Yes, Your Honor. This court has already ruled that the Laramores are responsible for the Facebook postings by virtue of the fact that they should ha
ve taken down the page if they couldn’t control it. Some ‘unidentified man’ doesn’t change that.”
“Mr. Gaines’ point is well taken,” said the judge. “Your request for reconsideration is denied, Mr. Swyteck.”
“But-”
“No ‘buts,’” said the judge. “The purpose of today’s hearing is to find an appropriate punishment for the violation of this court’s gag order-specifically, to determine if the lawsuit against BNN has sufficient merit to make dismissal too harsh. I want to reiterate, however, that this hearing will not become a mini-trial of Laramore v. BNN. There is just one issue: Even if BNN interfered with the data transmission from the ambulance, was that the legal cause of Celeste Laramore’s coma? Am I clear?”
“Yes,” said Jack.
“Good. The court will recess for twenty minutes. When we resume, the hearing will be open to the public, including television media. Mr. Swyteck, be prepared to call your first witness.”
“The plaintiff calls Virginia Laramore,” said Jack.
Celeste’s mother was actually the third witness. The first had been Jack’s friend and computer expert, Chuck-my-name-rhymes-with-f*** Mays-he worked cheap-who had explained how a hacker had crashed the wireless communication between the ambulance and the emergency room. Witness number two had been a cardiologist-a friend of Rene’s boyfriend, Dr. Ross. (Ross had done a one-eighty since busting Jack in the chops.) The cardiologist added an extra layer of expertise to the medical opinion that Rene had lost her life trying to share with Jack: that an uninterrupted data transmission from the ambulance would have revealed that Celeste had a heartbeat irregularity known as long QT syndrome, and doctors at the hospital could have prescribed treatment in-transit that could have prevented her from slipping into a coma.
The testimony had gone well. So well, in fact, that Jack decided to keep Mrs. Laramore’s testimony short-just enough to put a face on the case.
The bailiff swore the witness, and after brief background, Jack moved to the substance of her testimony.
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